Media

“How Is This Okay?”: Union Busting at Publicly Funded Facilities Amid Staffing Crisis

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A report published in March by Columbia University’s Labor Lab finds that nursing homes in Minnesota that receive public funds through Medicare and Medicaid are more likely to use union-busting tactics, including pressure, surveillance, and discipline. The report draws from data and surveys collected over four years, and states, “We find that workers are more likely to report union avoidance tactics in facilities with larger shares of resident care financed by public funds.” 

The report focuses on four Minnesota nursing homes, including one facility that is publicly owned, one for-profit facility within a larger healthcare system, one for-profit company run by a private equity chain, and one faith-based nonprofit. All four facilities were found to have engaged in union-busting tactics, including anti-union flyering, verbal pressuring of workers, and even asking residents and their families to participate in anti-union pressure. The report states that about “50% of the revenue of these companies comes from public programs like Medicare and Medicaid” and thus, “Minnesota taxpayers may be subsidizing the union avoidance activities of private employers.”

The researchers conducted interviews with workers “across a range of facilities” and found that union-busting occurs preemptively, with many workers exhibiting fear before having met with an organizer, and found that this pattern across workplaces in the industry “undermines workers’ freedom of association well before the beginning of a union drive.” The report highlights specific instances where nursing home workers from immigrant backgrounds and Black workers display fear of employer retaliation for unionization. 

The report also surveyed 1,991 registered certified nursing assistants (CNA) in Minnesota, asking workers for their place of work, their assessment of unions in their workplace, and if they witnessed union-busting tactics such as employer-organized meetings and the distribution of anti-union materials. The report then states, “We find a strong, positive, and significant association between respondents’ reports of anti-union activity within a facility and that facility’s reliance on public money.” 

Further, the report found that nursing home facilities “most dependent on public resources are also those in which conditions are worse for both residents and workers, and those in which workers face the most aggressive management opposition when they try to join together to push management to improve conditions.” 

The findings provoked outrage among nursing home workers, concerned about public funds being used to finance anti-union tactics.

Minnesota

“Bigger Than a Contract”: In the Twin Cities, Marches, Strikes, and Blockades for May Day

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Workers across the Twin Cities rallied and marched on International Worker’s Day, or May Day, in solidarity with contract fights, to stand with immigrant workers, and to oppose the threats against working people all over the globe. 

Many of the actions were led by leaders in the ICE OUT coalition that formed following Operation Metro Surge earlier this year. From the early morning hours into the evening of May 1, workers went out on strike, picketed in front of businesses, and led rallies in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Along with specific demands of various contract fights, the coalition is also calling for ICE to discontinue operations in Minnesota, that any officer who kills a civilian be held legally accountable, no additional federal funding for ICE in the upcoming congressional budget, and an investigation for human rights and constitutional violations committed by ICE. The coalition is also demanding corporations become 4th Amendment businesses, ceasing economic relations with ICE and refusing ICE entry or use of their property.

Minnesota

Why Target is at the Center of an ICE-Out Campaign in Minnesota

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ICE Out of MN, a coalition of unions, worker centers, and community organizations, is putting pressure on Minnesota’s corporations that stayed silent as thousands of federal immigration agents wreaked havoc on the state.The coalition is focusing its efforts on Target, a “home-grown” corporation, that once proudly championed progressive causes and local philanthropy, and has since rolled those commitments back, and donated $1 million to President Trump’s 2025 inauguration. 

The coalition is leading a corporate pressure campaign to urge the company to take steps to protect workers and use its political and economic capital to lobby against ICE. While ICE activity has decreased since its peak in Minnesota, detentions continue, and organizers are outraged that Target has stayed silent, even as ICE has come on its property. In January, two Target workers were violently detained while on the job at a Richfield, Minn., location. The workers were both U.S. citizens. 

Target, along with over 60 CEOs and other corporate leaders in Minnesota, published a brief letter on the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce website, asking for “de-escalation” the day after the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis. Organizers from the ICE Out of MN coalition argue that the letter is insufficient and does not directly ask for the end of ICE activity in the state. Workday Magazine reached out to Target for comment and did not receive a response by the deadline.

Minnesota

Waiters, Cooks, and Bartenders Are Calling on Hospitality Industry to Ban ICE From Minnesota Restaurants

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On February 13, restaurant workers rallied outside the Hospitality Minnesota building in downtown Minneapolis to deliver a Valentine’s Day card asking industry leaders to ban ICE from restaurants. The workers also want stronger protocols for protections at restaurants, and know-your-rights trainings for restaurant workers on the front lines. It’s not radical to refuse service to agents who are threatening and at times killing our community members,” said Jake, a line cook at prominent Minneapolis restaurants. The rally was organized by the “86 ICE” coalition, supported by Restaurant Opportunities Center of Minnesota (ROC MN and Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL), which includes both front- and back-of-house restaurant workers and restaurant owners. The number “86” refers to restaurant and bar patrons who are kicked out of an establishment.

Demand Grows for Statewide Eviction Moratorium in Minnesota

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On January 30, educators and children from the Twin Cities demonstrated in front of the governor’s mansion in St. Paul, Minn., led by rank-and-file members of Minneapolis Federation of Educators (MFE) Local 59, to demand that Gov. Tim Walz enact a statewide eviction moratorium. On the same day, a press conference was held in front of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) building in downtown Minneapolis, calling on the agency to pause evictions proceedings while ICE activity continues across the state. Activists say that the federal deployment of masked, armed federal agents to the state has made the eviction moratorium urgent. While ICE officials have announced a drawback of ICE activity in Minnesota, some argue that the economic damage has already been done, and that many will be scrambling to keep up with rent payments in the coming months. 

“A lot of people just can’t get to and from work because ICE has been stopping random cars on the road, largely based on what they think the skin color of the driver is,” says Klyde Warren, a Minneapolis renter and tenant organizer with Investment Property Group (IPG) and the Twin Cities Tenants Union.

Trabajadores de la construcción ocupan el vestíbulo de una promotora inmobiliaria y exigen medidas contra las redadas del ICE en las obras.

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El 21 de enero, trabajadores de la construcción y aliados de la comunidad cantaron, corearon consignas y marcharon hacia las oficinas de D.R. Horton, que, según los organizadores, es la mayor promotora inmobiliaria de viviendas unifamiliares del país. Su objetivo era entregar cartas en las que pedían a la empresa que protegiera a los trabajadores contra las redadas del ICE. En menos de 15 minutos, por lo menos siete agentes de policía de Lakeville llegaron al lugar y ordenaron a la multitud que abandonara las instalaciones. Los manifestantes dejaron la pila de cartas en el vestíbulo y continuaron la concentración en el exterior. La acción fue organizada por el Centro de Trabajadores Unidos En La Lucha (CTUL), un centro de trabajadores, y formaba parte de una iniciativa a nivel nacional para pedir a D.R. Horton que tomara medidas tras las denuncias de detenciones de trabajadores de la construcción por parte del ICE en las obras.

Immigration

Construction Workers Occupy Lobby of a Developer, Demand Action Against ICE Raids on Job Sites

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On January 21, construction workers and community allies sang, chanted, and marched into the offices of D.R. Horton, which organizers say is the largest developer of single family homes in the country. They aimed to deliver letters asking the company to protect workers against ICE raids. Within 15 minutes, at least seven Lakeville police arrived and ordered the crowd to leave the premises. Marchers left the stack of letters in the lobby and continued the rally outside. 

The action was organized by Centro de Trabajadores Unidos En La Lucha (CTUL), a worker center, and it was part of a nation-wide effort calling on D.R. Horton to take action after reports of ICE detaining construction workers on construction job sites. Similar actions were held across the country, including in Atlanta, Ga., Nashville and Knoxville, Tenn., and Baton Rouge and Lafayette, La. 

Workday Magazine spoke with Alexander, a construction worker who specializes in siding and is a member of CTUL.

Immigration

“Protect Our Routes, Get ICE Out”: Postal Workers Rally in Minneapolis

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Twin Cities postal workers with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 9 gathered at the post office on Lake Street in South Minneapolis on January 18 to demand U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) discontinue its use of postal property—and leave Minnesota. The crowd of over 200 union members and allies marched down Lake Street to the block where 37-year-old mother and poet Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross a few weeks before. 

Speakers at the rally showed their support for the upcoming January 23 shutdown planned across Minnesota. Dozens of Minnesota unions and workers centers have joined the call for “no work, no school, no shopping” on Friday. Emmet Bongaarts, a postal worker and NALC Branch 9 member, said postal workers have been first-hand witnesses and responders to ICE’s “reign of terror” across Minnesota in recent weeks. Bongaarts’ route runs through the Central neighborhood in South Minneapolis, close to where Good was killed.